I’m starting to really enjoy living in Buenos Aires, but I must admit, there are quite a few inconveniences to living in a country where the government doesn’t work all that smoothly.
First, for the past two weeks, my classes at IUNA have been cancelled due to a strike. Apparently it’s quite common to have a strike at a public university down here. It’s not even the professors who are on strike; apparently the students are protesting. Public universities here are free for anyone to attend. According to my Spanish professor, although their price used to be an immense asset, as the public universities were high quality, now, they have disintegrated to the point where they don’t have heat, all of the classes are huge, and the quality of education is supposedly not near what it used to be. This has caused a number of private universities to emerge, and apparently a number of student strikes. While I appreciate students’ rights, right now I’d really just like to learn tango and not miss more classes. One of my friends here got an even closer view of the strikes at a different university, UBA. Here’s his blog entry, which shows some awesome pictures and stories.
Then, there’s the money inconvenience. “M�s chiquito?” (“Smaller?”) is becoming one of my least favorite phrases. None of the stores like to give you change for a 100 peso bill. I completely understand that they don’t like counting the change and would rather you pay with a smaller bill, but 100 pesos is about $25 usd, which we would give change for in the US without thinking twice. Sometimes they get very grumpy about having to give change for 100 pesos.
It seems people have come to accept that life in Argentina is going to be filled with inconveniences. It’s not uncommon to hear people say things along the lines of “…but that’s life in Argentina.” Yesterday, in literature class, we were watching a documentary about a part of Buenos Aires. One of my classmates pointed out that even while riots were occurring, the movie continued to focus on the day-to-day life of the characters. Their lives weren’t stopped, there was just a passing mention of the tumultuous circumstances. It’s crazy that this inconveniences are simply a part of their routine lives.
Location: Sanchez de Loria 443, Buenos Aires, Argentina
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I appreciate both your perspectives, broadening my view of the world. Reading these comments reminds me of a pair of news broadcast…now back to you…:)
No prob, I think it’s great that we’re getting two different sides of the story. Really I’m just parroting everything that I’ve been told by students and teachers, which happens to come from the other angle.
I don’t know the full history either! Maybe the picture will get a little clearer as time goes on and we’ll be able to sort through some of the propaganda. In the end I think it’ll probably just boil down to opinion, but I suppose we’ll also have to watch for the outcome and such.
Very interesting, Ricky. I was under the impression that strikes happen quite often, so the idea that this is the culmination of many years is new. I was talking to one of my friends with a host family, and she said the girl (who’s in elementary) has off a couple times a year because of strikes. That makes me think it’s very common, along with the mere multitude of strikes we have seen. But it’s possible you’re right and this is just an unfortunate time to be here.
Most of what I wrote about the universities falling apart and strikes happening often comes from talking to my Spanish professor, who even went so far as to imply strikes are basically the students’ way of getting time to not study. My professor went to UBA awhile ago and also told us that, although it was a very good school then, it is not so now, and that’s why private universities are gaining strength in Buenos Aires.
I readily admit I don’t know all that much about the history of these strikes, this is just how it appears to me and the little that I know from talking to a couple people. Thanks for the other perspective.
I think it’s important to look at the current strikes in context. It’s not just limited to the students, either — the teachers go on strike tomorrow.
The massive student movement occurring right now is big news. Sure, students have marched and held protests in the past, but they haven’t taken over universities and high schools to this extent. Usually classes aren’t canceled the way they are now. So we just happen to be here at a particularly bad time.
This confrontation has been baking since at least 2006. Students have been fighting since then for improvements to their buildings, and in 2008, things boiled over into a strike similar to the one that’s happening now. But again, it didn’t happen at nearly the same scale.
I don’t think the rise of private universities means that the overall quality of the public ones has deteriorated, either.
Sure, the buildings have weathered, but UBA still has the best professors and its focus — what and how it teaches students — is different than that of the private ones. While the public ones aim for a broader liberal arts education, the private ones tend toward a more skills-based, functional curriculum. Determining the “quality” of education can then turn into a political question.
Now, the buildings of the UBA are literally falling apart, and it’s not that most people have the option of choosing a private university. For them, there is no alternative. They don’t have the money. And the belief that receiving a higher education — free — is one of their rights lies at the root of the current strikes.
So I don’t think that public education here suffers often from strikes to the extent that it’s suffering now, and I don’t think that private universities have cropped up neatly as a result of the public education deteriorating. I could argue that studying in UBA’s environment alone is an educational experience you won’t find at most private universities, where you’d probably be studying alongside only other privileged students.
On a lighter note, yeah, everything in Buenos Aires is improvised! I kind of like the unpredictability of life here, though some people here have told me that it gets tiring. I think it plays an essential part in molding the personality and life outlook of people here. One of my Peruvian friends bounced around between apartment and apartment for a whole month because of a logistical mixup, pretty much homeless. She took it in stride. Not saying at all that the infrastructure problem is a good thing, but it certainly makes life here distinct.
I understand the strong disappointment of classes canceled for 2 weeks or longer. Are other students also unhappy about the interruption to their education? What do the students do who are not part of the strike?